Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to the field of food slicers. More particularly, the invention pertains to a watermelon slicer.
Description of Related Art
Slicers of vegetables and fruit have been used in the past to ease the removal of the edible portion of the vegetable or fruit for consumption by a user. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,546,545, entitled, “Pineapple Cutter” by Hirano discloses a pineapple cutter with a cylindrical body having a cutting edge at the surface end of the lower portion, a pair of handles connected to the outer surface of the cylindrical body, a pressing sheet mounted on the inner portion of the cylindrical body slidable in the vertical direction and a pushing member secured to the upper portion of the cylindrical body connected with the pressing sheet. A second pressing sheet with a smaller diameter than the pressing sheet is located within the pressing sheet to core the pineapple. When used to cut the pineapple, the rind is removed at the same time the core of the pineapple is removed. The exposed cutting edges of U.S. Pat. No. 4,546,545 cause user safety risk. U.S. Pat. No. 4,546,545 could even be seen as an ejector assembly to deal with the obvious difficulty of removing pineapple from the cutter device of Hirano's U.S. Pat. No. 4,490,912.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,744,422, entitled “Fruit and Vegetable Cutter” by Taylor discloses a handle with detachable cutting head. The detachable cutting head is attached to the handle and a funnel type cylindrical portion with through threads. This cutter dices the entire vegetable or fruit including the outside skin. This cutter could not be used for a watermelon for example, because to push the cutter inside of the watermelon flesh, the screw thread connection would be too thick and additionally the holder around the funnel portion of the cutter would also not be able to be pushed through the watermelon flesh. Furthermore, the cutter can only accommodate items which fit entirely within the cutting circle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,490,912, entitled “Pineapple Cutter” by Hirano discloses a pineapple cutter with handles attached to a cylinder which has a cutter portion. The cylinder of the pineapple cutter is adapted to punch the outer peel and the interior of the pineapple to separate the peel from the interior of the pineapple. The pineapple cutter cuts into the outer peel of the pineapple in order to separate it from the interior of the pineapple. Furthermore, based on the design and the need to “punch” the pineapple cutter through the pineapple in order to slice it, softer flesh, such as the interior of a watermelon would be significantly damaged in the process of removing the flesh from the cutter assembly as described in this patent.
Therefore, there is a need for a watermelon slicer that can remove the fleshy interior or meat of the watermelon without cutting into the rind.